SINGAPORE: While Singapore’s drug situation remained under control in 2024, youth drug abuse continued to increase, according to statistics by the Central Narcotics Bureau ( CNB) on Wednesday ( Feb 12 ).
CNB acting director Leon Chan stated in its annual statistics report that the “worrying” trends in adolescent substance abuse, especially the “early emergence of drug misuse.”
There was a 1 per cent increase in new drug offenders arrested, up from 952 in 2023 to 966 in 2024.
Of those previously arrested next year, about 52 per cent were below 30 years old, compared to 51 per cent in 2023. The proportion of new medicine users detained before the age of 20 rose 30 %.
61 percent of those detained for possession of marijuana were fresh drug users, with 57 % of them under the age of 30.
Out of the 720 fresh meth abusers arrested, 53 per cent were below 30 centuries old. Additionally, there were more than 75 % more recently detained drug abusers in 2024 than there were in 2023.
In a 2022 poll conducted by the Institute of Mental Health, Mr. Chan cited a 13-year-old who was the youngest person detained for substance abuse in 2024 as being “far younger than the average beginnings years of drug abuse at 16 years old.”
Mr. Chan noted that there is a “growing tendency of toleration toward cannabis among our youths” as a result of an increase in the number of new abusers arrested for cannabis under the age of 30.